Cat music

I recently discovered videos on YouTube that play music to calm cats. Ruby looks pretty mesmerized by it.

Christmas finds

My Christmas theme this year is based (loosely) on the Spode Christmas tree cloth dinner napkins I bought a couple of years ago. Not sure how everything will come together just yet, but it will be mostly green and white and a touch of "I swear I had a plan." I had been on the hunt for Spode Christmas tree cocktail napkins to use for appetizers and, lo and behold, I found not one, but two, packs at Goodwill. They had some random Spode plates and other things which I didn't need but someone's Spode era obviously came to end.

I did grab this matching plate for $1.99.

Trivia night … in costume

I wasn't planning on being part of the museum's trivia team, especially since I had a sad (I think) showing during the volunteer game night we had this spring. But last Friday, we were still short two people for a team, so here we were last night at the Chamber's Halloween Trivia Contest. And, to make things worse, it was a costumes-encouraged trivia night. We had Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two dead Beatles, me as Miss Informed and Andy as a vintage OPRF baseball player.

I ordered the cheapest sash I could find on Amazon and figured without my girls at home, I'd better order sticky letters instead of attempting to make them myself on the Cricut. It turned out pretty well and I can always reuse it. I really just wanted a costume that I could wear a tiara with lol.

This was the dinner they provided. Meh.

It was held at a local comedy club and we noticed their house beer was brewed by Kinslahger, right by our house. Notice, though, it says Kins-Laughter.

Woo-hoo! After six rounds of (pretty easy) trivia, we, the Tragical History Tour team, won first place!!

The prize was five gift cards so we each got one. I took Buona Beef and Andy got Kettlestrings, a local restaurant/bar that we've never been to.

Edited to add the standings which the Chamber posted on Facebook, using my picture and asking if we're preparing to defend our title in 2026. I didn't realize there were 20 teams.

Fall cardinal puzzle

Darla gave me this puzzle at the scrapbooking crop because she knows I like cardinals. I knew it wouldn't be easy with all the similar, fall colors so it was pretty slow going. Ruby sitting in the box doesn't help.

Done ... missing three pieces. We'll see if they show up.

Shopping with E

Andy was out golfing (shocking!) Sunday morning. After a brief meeting at church to finalize a few wedding details, she picked me up and we did a little shopping. Here she is at Tony's stocking up on corn tortillas for D - they were so fresh they were still warm. She didn't buy a box, but did get six. He freezes them because apparently they don't have good, authentic tortillas in Seattle.

And she couldn't pass up the chance to go to Alpine. The employee even recognized her from last time and asked how her trip to Seattle was. She said, no, she lives there, here visiting for wedding details. Then, of course, they start talking about the wedding. Little does he know he'll probably have a return customer in a couple of weeks.

Frosted donuts and E’s home

Andy and I made our annual trek to Costco for donut frosting supplies Thursday night. He bought 24 pounds of butter, six bags of cocoa powder, 84 pounds of powdered sugar (12 bags), two gallons of milk and a gallon of apple cider. $222. Then we went to Tony's and bought six 8-ounce bottles of vanilla, another $14. Fortunately, as a former treasurer, he has a church credit card.

Andy went to church at 10 p.m. Friday to make the frosting - chocolate and apple cinnamon. Rather than come home before his captain shift started at 3 a.m. Saturday, he slept at church. My frosting shift started at a ridiculous 4 a.m.

Here's Capt. Andy giving us more chocolate frosting to use. We were cranking out the frosted donuts. A line of customers had formed by time the market open at 7 a.m. I came home about 7:30 and E, who just came in that morning for her final dress fitting, was napping on the couch. The dress is done and I was told not to post any pictures.

But here's my girl. We went to dinner at Avenue Ale House. They both had leftovers but I ate all of my burger since the only thing I ate today was a couple of donuts.

I found a frame

Remember the two wonky prints I snagged for free from Walgreens? Well, fate (and frugality) smiled upon me at Goodwill. I scored a frame with two 5x7 cut-outs for the grand price of $1.99. I cut the white edge off of each one and they fit the frame without the need to add any extra backing. Would a fancy mat make it look a little nicer? Sure, but for under two bucks, I'm good.

L’s visitor

L is taking a week off and spent it running around Disney World with Cindy.

This drink, at the new Beak and Barrel (pirate-themed) bar in Magic Kingdom, was called siren's tears. The bartender said if you make a wish it will come true. I wouldn't bet on that. This weekend she meets W's mom for the first time. Maybe she used her wish on a successful meet-up?

Cat pose

Not sure I've ever seen a cat sit like this. It's giving me "the doctor is in" vibes.

Halloween puzzle

Piper likes to pick up pieces of my puzzle and walk away with them. If this puzzle has all of the pieces, I'll be amazed.

And this piece mysteriously showed up on the dining room table. It's the missing piece from the Halloween candy puzzle that's already been recycled.

So, now I'm done and there's a piece missing. I think I'll hold onto for a few days and see if the piece appears before I dump it in the recycling bin. It would be a nice one to pass along.

Spiteful Brewing and Half Acre

Well, this is a little embarrassing and a first for us. When we got done with the Open House Chicago visits on Saturday we figured we'd find a brewery we've never been to and stop in for one beer, continuing our local brewery tour. Andy found Half Acre and plugged it into his GPS since we had no idea where we were going. The GPS told us we had arrived and we walked east, having just passed a bar. Andy, who was really tired from doing donuts, didn't notice until he was ordering that we weren't at Half Acre. I obviously wasn't paying any attention either. We walked into the wrong bar.

We were at Spiteful Brewing, but it was a good mistake because that Oktoberfest beer was so smooth.

Such a cute patio. We sat inside, but at a bar by an open overhead garage door.

The brewery had lots of plants. Someone there has a green thumb. Since we knew we were close to Half Acre, and that was our intended destination, we put that in Andy's map and soon realized that had we walked west when we got out of the car ...

we would have walked into Half Acre. The bars were literally feet from each other, on the same block.

Inside the bar.

We sat on the patio. It had rained that morning so some seats were still wet. Most people were inside but it was such a nice day and we won't have many more of those this season.

Cheers!

Cemetery Walk

It had rained all Sunday morning so we weren't sure the Cemetery Walk was going to happen - or be pushed to next Sunday's rain date - until close to the noon start time when the rain tapered off and the sun even tried to come out. The geese were loving it.

First group started out at noon, right on schedule.

Andy went with me because, let's face it, he takes better pictures. He's at the left of this photo doing his thing.

Andy and I drove around the cemetery a couple of weeks ago searching for a bluish tombstone I wanted a color picture of for a Facebook post. I was told there were quite a few in the cemetery and once I found one, I'd easily notice others. Well, that never happened that night. I found several during the Cemetery Walk so I took a few pictures to keep in my cemetery file. From the Facebook post: This monument at Forest Home was produced by the American White Bronze Co. of Chicago, which operated from 1886 to 1909. Look for a characteristic bluish-gray color which from the distance appears to be stone construction, but is actually sand-casted zinc. Customers ordered plaques, both stock and custom-made, which were attached to the sides of the monument with ornamental screws. Popular from the 1870s to World War I, these monuments have survived in excellent condition because they are resistant to weathering and erosion.

What's going on here?

I have a knack for getting my fingernail in my photos.

Open House Chicago (continued)

Stop No. 7 -- After lunch we took B back to his apartment. Apparently one site visit was enough for him. Andy and I returned to the Uptown Neighborhood and toured the Sheridan Trust & Savings (now known as Teller House).

This turned out to be such an interesting stop.

It's a workshare building where lots of people now have offices but so many details were kept, like this wall of teller windows.

And these lamps with the (wrong) date on them, sitting on a table that once held deposit slips and such.

Look at the lobby ... and the ceiling.

Andy indulged me and posed in this tiny phone booth. There were quite a few throughout the building.

Beautiful wood doors.

It's too bad buildings don't have these details any more.

Stop No. 8 -- St. Thomas of Caterbury Catholic Church. In 1916, this church was the first of three parishes organized by Chicago Archbishop Mundelein.

Da pope.

Not as ornate as most Catholic churches I've visited. We did eight stops in four hours, lunch with B, saw lots of great "No Kings" rally signs and the rain stayed away. It was a perfect day to be out and about in the city.

Uptown is such an interesting neighborhood. This is the closed Uptown Theater and ...

Very close by, the Aragon Ballroom. Neither was part of the Open House though.

The famous Green Mill Cocktail Lounge was open, but we didn't stop in.

You never know what you'll see in the city. Here's a hotdog lying on a sofa in front of a hotdog shop. Props to Andy who worked the first shift of donuts but drove us all over that afternoon. The man deserved a nap and, yes, he took one the moment we got home.